Huawei Honor 6 review – Octa core with 4G support

If you are looking for a powerful handset with 4G support under Rs. 20K, the Huawei Honor 6 could fit in perfectly. It is Octa Core powered but using a different chipset. The Honor 6 comes with a single SIM slot with 4G/3G/2G support. It is priced at Rs. 19,999.

Box Pack
The box packing is pretty slim. Inside you will get the handset, two screen guards – one for the front screen and other for the back panel, travel charger, data cable, user guide and warranty card. Earphone is not included. SAR Value : 1.070 W/kg.

Design
The handset is light weight and easy to handle. The rear has got glossy finish and comes with a glass layer, in fact the back panel looks even better than the front, had it not been for the logo and the camera on the back, one would have mistaken it for the front screen. The front screen is scratch restraint to some extent, for normal handling you really don’t need the screen guard. But on the back, better put up the screen guard. I had hardly used the handset (for review) and already started seeing some minor scratches on the back glass.

Weight is 134 grams with battery and dimensions are 69.89mm x 139.69mm x 7.63mm. This smartphone is with a premium build quality and finishing. The handset is sealed, battery is built in. The metallic grey side run all the way except at the bottom.

Power button and volume rockers are on the right side. Audio jack, mic and IR blaster are placed on the top. Micro USB port and another mic is placed at the bottom. Below the power button there is a packed slot that when opened will reveal the single micro SIM slot and a micro SD card slot.

The handset has a glossy finish on both front and back, it gives a good grip but could turn slippery for some (with sweaty palms).

Display
the Huawei Honor 6 sports a 5 inch screen with FHD resolution. There are no dedicated navigation buttons and hence onscreen navigation buttons will consume some area on the screen (in general the screen resolution becomes 1776 x 1080 pixels).

Touch is very, very smooth and responsive. Viewing angles and colour reproduction are also very good. There is LED notification (green / orange colour). This handset comes with accelerometer, magnetic, light, proximity, gyro and hall sensors plus Huawei step counter.

Memory, Storage and OS
There is 3GB RAM and 16GB storage. On the first boot the free RAM was 2GB and you get about 11GB space for apps. Apps can be installed on external storage and OTG is also supported.

Honor 6 runs Android KitKat 4.4.2 out of the box with Emotion UI 2.3. The interfaced is very fluid and quite attractive.

Gaming
I tried looking for MC5 (Modern Combat 5) but could not find it when I searched for it on Google Play, probably the game is not compatible with the hardware. I could install Asphalt 8 and Real Racing 3 and both of these games played very well without any issues. I played Asphalt in high visual quality mode.

Entertainment
The hardware seems powerful but it failed to play 4K videos. I tried playing 4K video using MX player. It failed in H/W mode and did show up in S/W mode but with a lot of lags / slow motion. Full HD videos played without any issues.

Camera
There is 13MP rear AF camera with dual LED flash and 5MP on the front. Rear camera can record full HD videos at 30fps and you can shoot HDR videos in 720p resolution. The auto focus is pretty fast. Camera supports smart mode, watermark, filters, HDR, beauty shot and more.

The still camera and video quality is above average but not the best. Check the sample images and videos at the end of this review.

Others
This handset supports 4G, 3G, 2G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS. I got the GPS lock within 5 seconds. No issues with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. I am using the Airtel network in Mumbai and as of now they are not proving 4G services in Mumbai. I did get a message for the first time that 4G is not available; it then switched to 3G (H+).

Sound is loud and clear it is using DTS sound technology. If you place the handset on a flat surface it will block the speaker vent and in turn the sound. In call sound is very good and clear.

Handset does heats up with heavy usage, I was outdoor shooting sample images and videos, when I finished with the shoot, the max temp was around 49 degrees.

There is IR blaster but there are no pre-installed apps on the phone for that.

Battery
There is built in battery of 3000 mAh capacity. Here are the test results.

Task

Time

Battery drop (%) (max temp)

Running Benchmark apps

37 minutes

13% (39)

FHD video playback (loop) with Wi-Fi on + full brightness

23 minutes

6% (38)

RR3 + Asphalt 8 GamePlay

21 minutes

7% (39)

Battery charger

within 3 hours

from 18% to 100%

You can expect continuous battery backup of about 4 to 6 hours. It will easily give over a day with moderate usage. There are different power saving modes that will help get more juice on a single charge. Ultra Power saving mode is also available that will use minimal colors and a simple interface – this is a very good option when the battery is very low and you don’t have any other options to charge the handset.

Verdict
It is a good handset for under Rs. 20,000 with 4G enabled. It is using a different octa core processor and some apps may not be compatible. Performance is very good, no lags but handset heats up.

Camera quality could have been better. Now the Huawei Honor 6 does not really compete with the Killer OnePlus one model – OPO gives better camera output as compared with Honor 6 and most importantly OPO can play 4K and shoot 4K videos which Honor 6 unfortunately can’t.

Honor 6 does compete with the other Octa Core processor and does have an advantage with it comes to 4G and 3GB RAM.

thanks for your comments i like the phone at the moment im using lg g3 and im planning to switch it as its the only dual sim dual active phone as per gsmarena but i want to know the sar value as i cannot see any where

Gogi., I’m planning to buy honor 6, Please let me know whether it’s a good choice, i liked the specs, Handy, powerful and light weight, and mostly the screen size.I was looking for good brand android mobile with 5inch(below screen for which comfortable 1handed operation)
2Gigs minimum
3000mah battery
i finally shortlisted this after a long tiring searches.

Just doubting on the heating or any other issues cause none of my friends used hauwei.

Between Lenovo Vibe X2 and Honor 6 which phone is more preferable? I have heard that call quality is not good in OPO so trying to avoid it. Planning to buy a new phone in next few days. My budget is 20K. Would you suggest something please?

when I tap on back of honor 6 below the camera and led light, some noise came looks like some internal part is loose don’t know its camera glass sound or led bulb making some sound need advice is it same with the everyone honor 6 handset or mine has some problem

Hi Guys,
Can anyone pls suggest me which mobile is best under 20000 on current date
Preferably in between honor 6(17000rs flip-kart sell) and one plus one(16gb 19000) ..
considering all aspects like camera, after service ..
one plus doesn’t have memory extension slot
Confused

Really require your help guyz, purchased huawei honor 6, 12 days ago handset gets restart once or twice everyday. Can you please suggest the possible solution or should I replace the product with flipkart. Any solution is really appreciated, thanks in advance.

That’s weird, try checking the resolution using antutu benchmark, you can also run the benchmark and see the resolution mentioned during the graphics test. If you are still getting 720p better ask for replacement.

I have bought honor 6 last week.now it is showing like no network so I have to switch off and then switch on the the mobile again and again to find network. Then again after some time network is gone. Am using airtel network. Could anybody tell what will be the problem?

I have purchased the Honor 6 and love the phone. Just one problem. How in all samsung devices there is a feature to select ‘WCDMA only’ for mobile networks, there is none in this phone. So the network keeps switching between 3G and 2G. Is there any tactic by which we can select only 3G?

Hai!!! Bought Huawei honor 6 and satisfied with the performance. But at times the phone gets heated up.. Can you imply the reason for this problem? But this problem gets rectified by itself if it s kept idle for a while. I don’t think this will be happening. Since the battery is not removable couldn’t check if the battery is malfunctioning. And another think is it gets shut down automatically(Rarely, Experienced once). Can u give the solution because I have no idea of switching to another phone. Hoping to get response soon…

hmm check if that happen after installing any app, do a factory reset and use it without installing any apps, if same issue then get it checked at service center or if purchased within few days then you can ask for replacement.

Please avoid a factory reset. Its useless. You only waste your time doing that. All phones get heated up after using heavily and it can’t be changed. The processors and chips emit heat and the cooling systems can handle only upto a certain level for a certain amount of time.

I just found out that this is the best phone available In India at this time or maybe for next 3 months.
Its better than OnePlus One in looks, Performance as its octa core sleeping cores will save you battery over the 4 cores of OPO, Ya if anyone choose OPO over this, Just think once for what reason you buy OPO??
That phone is good for nothing in India, As no CM updates.
I am very satisfied with this phone and intend to use for better part of the next year.. 🙂
I was convinced ever since saw the review on this website.

Gogi sir,
i would like to know abou the initial charging time of the phone .since there is lot of different answers like ,some says we need to charge it around 6 hrs and some says there is of no need of doing such things.
i would like your expert opinion on this
Thanks

I bought Honor 6….I am facing problem with wifi consumption status in Battery settings even though I have not used wifi. Wifi status is always blue in colour even though both data & Wifi are off…is this common pls help

I Researched and found Currently Honor 6 Kind of does not Support 4G now as it does not support Airtel 4G (TDD-LTE 2300Mhz) and Support FDD-LTE 1800Mhz so it is kind of Future Use only and that is Why Flipkart Says it is 3G Handset.

Some Vendors that will use this band are Vodafone, Reliance, and others.
Interesting Fact is that all operators has 4G-LTE in different locations or states and only Reliance-Jio has all india License so things can get complicated as far as 4G in Concerned in India Unless legal Sharing of Circles are allowed like in 3G it is allowed or Handsets has to support both Frequency bands.

As far as i know Huawei Honor 6 comes in 4 or 5 variations the TDD-LTE model which has incompatible frequencies to operate in the western markets beyond basic 2G connectivity (H60-L01), and the FDD-LTE model which does feature compatible bands, and also comes with dual-SIM capabilities (H60-L02). The two basic 16GB network versions come in 32GB variants (H60-L11 for TDD, H60-L12 for FDD) and In INDIA on Flipkart it is H60-L04 Which is only 3G so please explain how do you or from where you obtain this 4G handset or request Huawei an explanation to clarify whole thing….

Gogi sir quadrant score of honor 6 is approximately equal to redmi 1s and it is using another chipset so what is best and the killer one plus one is far better than it but service centre of opo is not in small city so which is best honor 6 or one plus one

Gogi let me add something here. When you say one plus one can play 4k but honor cannot you are missing out an important factor of video bitrate. In general I am sure even opo will not be able to play a very high bitrate fhd video such as probably 50 Mbps. Battery will drain like hell and heating surely reset the CPU. Would you then say oh it can’t play even fhd videos? All this fhd 4k etc are gimmicks to some extent. With proper bitrate even a 720 will kill a poorly encoded fhd or 4k. Per pixel data matters more then the shear number of pixels.

Hey gogi, are you buying this phone for your own use? If yes please do a review after updating the software about camera, heating issue(some reviewer said that it didn’t heat up like others even in heavy usage like playing hd games),etc. And kirin 920 used bigLITTLE arc. It should be 4 a15 cores and 4 a7 cores not 8 a7 right?

I have mentioned that the front screen is scratch resistant to some extent, flipkart says front 5 inch screen is with Gorilla glass protection, but I did not find it mentioned on the box. And I don’t think it is highlighted in the user manual.

Gogi sir benchmark scores says honor 6 gpu mali t624 fails to perform as good as adreno 330.. even its camera samples on zooming are noisy and lacks detailing..
Sir for a budget within 20k should i wait for mi
4 launch???

Rahul the GPU does not fail to perform but handset gets heated up. Camera quality is not the best. If not in a hurry better wait for Mi4 or if you cannot wait then go with Nitro or Alcatel Idol X+ without 4G.

Huawei is doing something fishy…in India a single Sim whereas elsewhere in World a Dual Sim version is universal..are India centric phones leftovers ? Huawei could have used a Snapdragon 801 to increase appeal of this good phone marred byHiSilicon.

In any case dual sims is considered a feature that was found mostly in local Asian brands… it was only afterwards that big brands introduced in their mid and low end phones. None of the big brands have dual sim on their flagships.

I am using ascend p7 and its Huawei’s flagship and out in market only in july. But the specification honor 6 seems to be their flagship. Even though the camera is best in p7 by looking at the images andand front also (8mp). And lookwise also p7 looks best. But 3gb ram and octa core is hell of a miss comparing the cost of p7 n h6. P7 is quad core(a9) n 2gb ram.

Yes almost same as Redmi, if you check the redmi review the temp is around the same. You see you can feel it hot. The temp on Redmi would keep increasing if you continue using (probably software bug that might have been fixed now), well that was not the case with Honor 6.

I also bought this phone. Did you find any way to activate the IR blaster? The hardware is present, but Huawei has not included any app. Also the IR blaster apk from the foreign versions of the Honor 6 does not install.

No I immediately installed the rear screen guard as soon as I took it out of the box, having read the reviews.

I had installed some apps from Google Play, they do not work at all.

Then I had asked someone on XDA forums to post an IR blaster app apk of the international versions (H60-L02, L01, L11, 12) when I tried to install that it would not install. (even after allowing apps from unknown sources)